{"id":1659,"date":"2021-10-05T20:09:10","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T19:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/?p=1659"},"modified":"2021-10-05T20:09:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T19:09:13","slug":"caerlaverock-harbour-fieldwork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/castlestudiestrust.org\/blog\/2021\/10\/05\/caerlaverock-harbour-fieldwork\/","title":{"rendered":"Caerlaverock: Harbour Fieldwork"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thanks to funding from the Castle Studies Trust, Historic Environment Scotland are working with researchers Dr Richard Tipping and Dr Eileen Tisdall to understand\u00a0the chronology and geography of extreme weather events in the high\u00a0medieval period, and the effects they wrought on archaeological features that led to the abandonment of the old castle built in c.1229 in favour of the new built 200m away in c.1277.<\/em> Here Richard Tipping gives an update on the fieldwork which too place last Saturday (2 October).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the great puzzles of old Caerlaverock is the so-called harbour (Image 1). It is south of the old castle, two metres lower, and just north of where we think the early medieval coastline was, so it\u2019s difficult to think what else it could have been. But it\u2019s never been independently dated, there are rumours that it was Roman, and there are knotty interpretative problems. One is that the floor of the harbour is at an altitude that would make it tricky to get more than rowing boats in and out in the Middle Ages; this is also a problem if the harbour was older. A second is that there is a fourth side at the southern end, which greatly restricts access. As Richard Tipping explains below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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